| Riassunto: | <p>Background: Epidemiological evidence on the association between ambient air pollution and breast cancer risk is inconsistent. </p><p>Objectives: We examined the association between long-term exposure to ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women. </p><p>Methods: In 15 cohorts from nine European countries, individual estimates of air pollution levels at the residence were estimated by standardized land-use regression models developed within the ESCAPE and TRANSHORM projects: particulate matter (PM) ≤ 2.5, ≤ 10, and 2.5-10 μm in diameter (PM2.5, PM10, and PMcoarse), PM2.5 absorbance, nitrogen oxides (NO2 and NOx), a traffic intensity and elemental composition of PM. We estimated cohort-specific associations between breast cancer and air pollutants by Cox regression model, adjusting for major lifestyle risk factors, and pooled cohort-specific estimates using random-effects meta-analyses. </p><p>Results: Of 74,750 postmenopausal women included in the study, 3,612 developed breast cancer during 991,353 person-years of follow-up. We found positive and statistically insignificant associations between breast cancer and PM2.5 (Hazard Ratio; 95% Confidence Interval: 1.08; 0.77, 1.51 per 5 µg/m3), PM10 (1.07; 0.89, 1.30 per 10 µg/m3), PMcoarse (1.20; 0.96, 1.49 per 5 µg/m3), and NO2 (1.02; 0.98, 1.07 per 10 µg/m3) and a statistically significant association with NOx (1.04; 1.00, 1.08 per 20 µg/m3, p-value = 0.04). </p><p>Conclusions: We found suggestive evidence of an association between ambient air pollution and incidence of postmenopausal breast cancer in European women. </p>
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